


Good Man

by elsmaster



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Broken People Everywhere, Character Study, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, F/M, Gen, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 16:06:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsmaster/pseuds/elsmaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson is not an evil man, but sometimes he does wonder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Man

John Watson cycles to work, leaves home and arrives at his practice every day at exactly the same time, like clockwork. John Watson does his job, is _good_ at his job, gets praised for being good at his job. John Watson is nice, approachable and sympathetic. John Watson is professional, pragmatic and realistic.

John Watson is an ordinary man. He has a wife, and a child on the way, and a nice little place in the London suburbs. He has a job, and hobbies, and friends he meets up with for a pint every now and again. John Watson reads books and watches telly and has dinner, and breakfast, and tea with his wife, like the good husband he is.

Sometimes, late at night, when John Watson lies in his bed, a good two feet between him and his sleeping wife, he needs to count down from one thousand to believe what he has been telling everyone else for the past two and a half months; that he is ordinary, that he is happy, that there’s nowhere else, or no one else he’d rather be.

Because being _this_ , being a perfectly ordinary doctor from the London suburbs, is far better than being a man who has been lied to, a man who has been used, has been lead on, and manipulated; a man who surrounds himself with people who withhold information and tell him it’s for his own good.

Because it’s either _this_ or nothing at all.

John Watson is a strong man, a brave man; a soldier, a fighter. John Watson has survived war, injury and tragic loss, and John Watson has always managed to put himself back together. He’s always had a little bit of help, of course; he’s a nice chap, a companionable fellow, who gets along with most people, knows how to keep a conversation going.

Sometimes, late at night, when John Watson lies in bed, he plans the murder of his wife. He would never do it, of course, _he_ is not the cold-hearted psychopath here, ta very much, but he _does_ wonder. He wonders if it would change things. If, after the initial mourning period and the suprisingly wide range of suffocating emotions he has far too recently become far too familiar with, his life would return to the way it was. If he could, somehow, pretend the last three years never happened. If he could, somehow, become the man he was before his best friend jumped off a rooftop and came back to life; before he met the love of his life and married her; before the love of his life turned out to be the very same brand of cold and calculating as the best friend he once thought he’d lost.

Sometimes, as he plans the murder of his wife and, inevitably, his unborn child, he wonders if he, too, is just as deranged as the people he surrounds himself with. If there actually is something deeply wrong with him.

_At least he would never do it._

John Watson is not an evil man. He is a man with strong moral principles, and a calling for saving lives. He is a healer, a _good_ man. A good man who saves people.

John had always thought he’d make a decent father. He is patient, yet strict, has nerves of steel, and a wicked sense of humour. John had always known that if it ever came to it, he’d do a good job raising his children. He’d make a good dad.

John Watson loves his wife: fell in love with her minutes after meeting her, knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her less than a week later.

John Watson’s wife is a liar, and nearly murdered John Watson’s best friend. The man who had come back from the dead not a year earlier. The man who turned John Watson’s life around, two years before that. The man who lied to John, deceived him, put his life in danger on so many occasions John lost count some time after the first month of their acquaintance. The man who _saved_ John Watson, without being asked to.

Sometimes, late at night, when John Watson lies awake in bed, he wonders if his life had been different, had his best friend never come back from the dead.

John would have loved his wife, he would have had a family, and a nice little place in the London suburbs, and a nice little doctor’s practice. He would have thought about his best friend every now and again, with a fond smile and a chuckle, because the dead always become better versions of themselves. He would have lived his life happy, and died happy, and been missed by his children and his grandchildren.

But John Watson’s best friend didn’t stay dead, and John Watson now knows his wife is a liar. A liar he is in love with. A liar who carries his child. A liar he can’t bring himself to hate.

Maybe John Watson _is_ deranged. Maybe he has been broken a few times too often. Maybe psychological disorders are contagious, despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary. Maybe John Watson was never whole to begin with.

Two feet to his left, John Watson’s wife turns in her sleep and reaches for his hand. John Watson closes his eyes and breathes in, and then out.

There is a weight on his chest, and ice in his blood, but he feels Mary’s wedding band against the back of his hand, and wonders if there is a cure for whatever it is that has made him the way he is.

John Watson sleeps, and dreams of being burned alive. He dreams of killing a man. He dreams of watching his best friend jump to his death, and bleed out on the pavement.

In the morning John Watson cycles to work, does his job, and is nice and approachable and sympathetic and professional.

In the morning John Watson is an ordinary man.

**Author's Note:**

> (I hang out on [Tumblr](http://elsmaster.tumblr.com). Come say hi.)


End file.
